ISHACON 2019

From 7^th to 10^th February all the buzz was in Bengaluru, where it all began on the 7^th of February, hearing/speech professionals from around the country made their presence in the 51st ISHACON organized by ISHA (Indian Speech and Hearing Association), the seminar had national and international experts with a blend of theory and practice and was held at the prestigious NIMHANS convention center.

The Indian Speech and Hearing Association is the professional and scientific association of more than 3440 members who are speech-language pathologists, audiologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists in India and internationally.

ISHA’s vision statement states: ISHA envisages professional excellence in Speech-Language and Hearing services, safeguarding professional ethics and the interest of professionals and the people with Speech Language and Hearing Disorders.

Their mission statement: ISHA promotes excellence in Speech-Language and Hearing profession and rehabilitation services through advocacy, leadership, unique and continued education, both for public and professional awareness, ethical considerations and outcome monitoring and professional networking and support to research.

As we conclude ISHA is an organization that aims to encourage scientific study of the processes involved in Speech-Language and Hearing, to promote investigation of Speech-Language and Hearing disorders, foster improvement of therapeutic procedures for such disorders, to stimulate an exchange of information among persons thus engaged and disseminate such information.

The Annual Conference of ISHACON is organized every year by ISHA to get hearing professionals from all across the country together and discuss their mutual goal that is to promote excellence in Speech-Language and Hearing.

The program was divided into two parts pre-conference on 7^th Feb and the main conference from 8^th to 10^th Feb and events were scheduled and performed as per the following: 

• - Six CEPs on different topics for half-day each
• - Two Skype talks from the USA
• - Five plenary sessions
• - Five-panel discussions including one Patients' forum
• - Paper and Poster presentations
• - Talks by Industry personnel
• - Exhibition

Being in the hearing-aid Industry we as Bernafon were also present in the ISHACON from 7^th to 10^th February & displayed our active participation over there. Our presence was in Stall Number 09 & 10 in the exhibition and the way we portrayed our all-new premium hearing –aid “Zerena” was much-admired by everyone present in the conference. The features of Zerena were explained to Professionals, students and others who made a visit to our Stall that Zerena operates on outstanding DECS™ technology with the quantum leap in the hearing industry. The exceptional topographies of Zerena like Dynamic Noise Management™, Dynamic Amplification Control™, and Dynamic Speech Processing™ and all that operates seamlessly and continuously for high performance in active and fast-changing environments with wireless connectivity to different devices like iPhone, iPad, iPod, Bluetooth & TV and thus is tech-savvy, all this is available at affordable price when starting at INR 40K and that’s not all Zerena is based on a new powerful dual-radio transmission chip that allows 2.4 GHz direct-to-the-ear streaming. Its highest precision and super-fast processing capabilities enable great sound quality and fitting flexibility. Everyone present there were truly charmed by #Zerena and that was the talk of the show.

Our stall was visited by 100’s of delegates whom we had great discussion with. Visitors in our stall included: Mr. Ramesh Oza & Ms. Shabnam from Calipsonic, Mr. Satya Bhan from Lilavati Hospital & Mr. Debashish Bose from C.C. Shah Hearing aids Kolkata, Mr. Bhushan Sharma & Anil Jishtu from IGMCH Shimla, Mr. Nilesh Dandekar from Dandekar Hearing Clinic Pune, Dr. Kalyani Mandke from Mandke Hearing Services, Mr. Sanjay Munjal HOD PGI Chandigarh. Our stall had a lucky draw competition during the conference. The winners for the same were: Mr. Rajesh Ranjan from Gorakhpur, Mr. Pankaj Shidhe from Jalna, Mr. N.D. Rajan from Puducherry and Ms. Manju IM from Trivandrum.

The entire ISHACON 2019 experience was amazing and we loved every bit of it, from day 1 to last day it was exciting and full of enthusiasm, we liaised with people from around nation with similar interests and that’s what made it a win-win situation, we learned a lot, we grew within it, we explored ourselves in the hearing industry, overall it was an experience for a lifetime and we would like to take an opportunity to thank ISHA and its members for taking an initiative once again. We are eagerly waiting for ISHACON 2020 to happen, it will take place in the cleanest city of India that is none other than Chandigarh and we hope similarly that will also take our heart as this jamboree of our community did.